300 or so fans at a 16K stadium watch Qatar thump North Korea in the Asian Cup group stages, since a diplomatic blockade stopped Qatari fans travelling, and North Korea only ever lets a select group of fans attend away games: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/67513572.cms

As I recall when North Korea made it to the World Cup some of their fans were later revealed to be Chinese.

One goal separated four teams at the end of the Asian Cup group stage when it came to the third place sides moving forward - 2 "disciplinary points" of a difference sent Lebanon home and Vietnam to the knockouts. Lebanon needed to beat North Korea by four but managed a winning margin of three. How devastating must that have been?

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Lecce v Ascoli in Serie B was abandoned this evening after effectively seven seconds. The very first challenge resulted in a clash of heads and a nasty landing for Lecce's Scavone. Certainly knocked out cold; maybe worse. Ambulance drove onto the pitch to take him to hospital, and that was the end of the game. No news as yet on his condition

Tomorrow at 6am Irish time is the league match with the furthest possible distance to travel - Luch-Energia Vladivostok v Baltika Kaliningrad.

It's 4,500 miles away - the equivalent of a team from Dublin having a league game in Seattle. That's 50% further than I think the longest distance a LoI club ever travelled for a competitive game (Pat's v Karagandy)

It's 12½ hours by plane, with a stop-over in Moscow. 7 days by train.

You can drive too - but it's 6,500 miles by road. There's a story of three Zenit St Petersburg fans who did it once; the car didn't survive. It got the fans to the game - Zenit won 2-0 - but the car died in Vladivostok, and the three had to get the train back, only just making it in time for their next home game. The club gave them a present of a new car; the old one is in the Zenit museum now.

The time difference alone is 8 hours, so you've to factor in jetlag getting to a league game. And of course it's much worse for Vladivostok, who have to do this every second week. This map shows just how isolated they are.

All this in a division - the Russian second flight - with average crowds of 2000.

Cuneo are playing Pro Piacenza in Serie C at the moment. Pro Piacenza (who aren't Piacenza; that's a different team in the same division) scratched their last four games and to avoid further sanctions, they've turned up today with seven players from the youth team.

Score was 16-0 at half time, and it's 19-0 now with a few minutes to go.

Cuneo are playing Pro Piacenza in Serie C at the moment. Pro Piacenza (who aren't Piacenza; that's a different team in the same division) scratched their last four games and to avoid further sanctions, they've turned up today with seven players from the youth team.

Score was 16-0 at half time, and it's 19-0 now with a few minutes to go.